The Bell Tolls on the Final Day
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: ding dong ding dong goes the bells, and one can hear and another one can't.
1. 1

**A/N:** Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, c2 – poetry novel

* * *

 **The Bell Tolls on the Final Day**

 **1.**

ding dong ding dong, the bell sounds bounce through these empty halls like carefree children playing hide and seek with the death angel's song

and the death angel's coming, he's coming and the bell tolls, loud grinding gongs that chase him like he's the dog they need lock back in his kernel, but the kernel's a six-foot span box instead and he's not ready to be buried yet, alive or dead but the song's in his ears anyway, bleeding through every canal, every crevice

ding dong ding dong, for him the bell tolls  
ding dong, ding dong, there aren't no controls

they play this game of hide and seek - they've played it - but now they've moved into the endgame and he's lost and he'd always knew he'd lost because he's the best but he's human and humans can lose too... and humans lose, humans die, and he'll die a human who's lost the greatest match of his life and that's sad, that's intolerable but it's humanising too if only his death wasn't going to be the blood-script that signs the world away and it's not even arrogance which says

ding dong ding dong, he's lost the game  
ding dong, ding dong, the halls are maimed

the children still dash, their shadows chasing the bell tolls and he wonders when they'll finishing counting to twelve because that's when the bell will stop and this game and life of his and farce as well.


	2. 2

**The Bell Tolls on the Final Day**

 **2.**

can you hear the count of the bell, the count that's taken off from fingers tapping the timer between them without any sort of rhythm as they've made their moves and painted a long and gruesome tale on the board? it's the bell that counts the end, the bell that counts them off in the endgame: every step, every move, every dot on the canvas board but he sees nothing, he's been trying to pull the endgame up since the first day of this endless match and the grappling's kept it far away and the game goes on...

can you hear the count of the bell that preludes the silence of your victory, the victory you've strove for far more tenaciously than your opponent and sacrificed far more and so you'll win this match but you'll surely lose the war, because what's an army if the army's all dead and gone except for you that stands on the helm alone

deaf ears of yours who can't hear the bell  
numb skin of yours who can't feel the hell

sweltering, stifling heat and gongs that ring so loud your eardrums should shatter except you can't hear them at all, you can't see the endgame's approach though you've tried to hard to bring it forth and you can't see this game's just a prelude, the battle that's the prelude to your end

can you hear the song of the bell, no you can't  
will you hear when the death angel comes for you instead?


	3. 3

**The Bell Tolls on the Final Day**

 **3.**

you search for the bell clapper but it's nowhere to be found, nowhere to be found because it's for your mind alone where no rationale can explain and no shining knight can come forth and sweep you off your feet and save the day – and there isn't even a day to be saved, because it's the eternal day, your eternal day that ends too soon and too late…

you can't find the bell clapper and death's right around the corner, at your door ready to knock and you can't bar the door enough, you know you can't and you know it's futile to try and so you don't, you don't but you continue this futile match anyway hoping the tide will change, something will give way, maybe even hoping death will throw the match with you and send you off again though you know he won't, he won't because he hates you too much and you've cheated him enough

and it's the same for you, could have been friends once upon a time but now it's too late, in the endgame and far too far apart with the table in between, and neither of them are strong enough to flip the table

can you find the bell clapper, before the match is set?  
can you change the direction of the tides and win your bet?

he knows it cannot but that doesn't stop him hoping all the same, because he's humans and they're not rational little things at all, at the end of the day or lonely ones, and why does the one ringing the bell clapper he can't see have to be the one closest to a friend?


	4. 4

**The Bell Tolls on the Final Day**

 **4.**

you don't hear the symphony of the bells but the deafening silence that follows just screams in your ear and the back of your ears and your neck are slick with sweat, the sweat of spilt wine because he's chugged it down too fast and too much after a hard day's work but it's worth it, because that deafening silence following a song he can't hear is the stunned sound of victory before the crowd's applause

but there is no crowd, not for this match since you've played in shadows, in secret where no-one else believes and no-one else can prove and now you've won and the game is set and you can collapse bonelessly into your victory seat because there's no need to worry any more

you recall the bells you couldn't hear and you wonder if that was his olive branch, his white towel, his admission of defeat

and five years later when you finally hear the bells yourself, you understand and you wish you don't because

ding dong ding dong, ding dong go the bells  
and they sing your funeral march right off to the hells  
you thought you'd circumvented, the doors you thought you'd slammed  
but you're a human deep down and now the bells go ding dong  
for you

and here's your witness, who's heard his own bells years ago and now he hears yours as well so you don't even need to ask, ask

can you hear the bells, the bells to my demise  
this execution, these failing cries

and maybe that's the tune that breaks the monotone and sets him free as well because the battle between the two of you had ended long ago but not the war.


End file.
